1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to technology for mapping data so that data can be communicated between a relational database and a system that represents data in a manner different than the relational database.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the growth of the Internet, the use of networks and other information technologies, Identity Systems have become more popular. In general, an Identity System provides for the creation, removal, editing and other managing of identity information stored in various types of data stores. The identity information pertains to users, groups, organizations and/or things. For each entry in the data store, a set of attributes are stored. For example, the attributes stored for a-user may include a name, address, employee number, telephone number, email address, user ID and password. The Identity System can also manage access privileges that govern what an entity can view, create, modify or use in the Identity System. Often, this management of access privileges is based on one or more specific attributes, membership in a group and/or association with an organization. Some users of Identity Systems also use Access Systems. An Access System provides for the authentication and authorization of users attempting to access resources. For efficiency purposes, there is an advantage to integrating the Identity System and the Access System. For example, both systems can share the same set of data stores.
Some systems are designed for a particular type of data store. For example, some Identity Systems are designed to work with LDAP directories. However, some organizations that desire to use the Identity System may already have a relational database populated with data in use for other systems. Thus, there is a desire for supporting the use of relational databases for systems designed to work with other types of data stores.
Some prior solutions have provided for the use of relational databases by systems designed to work with other types of data stores. However, these prior solutions required that the relational database employ a specific predetermined schema. Requiring a specific predetermined schema may be acceptable for a new database that is not to be used with other applications. Existing databases, however, have already been implemented with a schema. Additionally, some databases may also need to interface with other applications that may not work with the specific predetermined schema. Thus, there is a need to support the use of relational databases for systems designed to work with other types of data stores, where the relational database is not required to be of a specific schema.